Yearly Archives: 2012

merry x-mas

Julia asked me how long I’d been spend­ing Christmas at their house. We fig­ured out this was the sev­enth year, cause I have pic­tures of Ginger from 2005, before she died. I can’t say I remem­ber each Christmas dis­tinct­ly, aside from a few extra faces and occa­sion­al make­outs that cause some to stand out more than oth­ers. It’s strange to think that I’ve known Braiden for more than half his life. I per­pet­u­al­ly think of him as being sev­en.

The Rogers'

The kids are get­ting old­er, no longer up at 5am and anx­ious­ly wait­ing by the presents until they’re allowed to wake up the par­ents. The idea of Santa has long been dis­pelled. Braiden’s giv­en up being a cen­tre for goalie, lost his post-sea­son scruff cut, and at 13 is only an inch short­er than me. Nicole’s done most of her grow­ing and will be legal in four months, but at the age where she’s still some­one’s daugh­ter instead of her own woman. Julia’s sport­ing a new voice and pierc­ing, but has kept all the sass that comes with being the mid­dle child.

Continue read­ing “mer­ry x‑mas”…

finishing the game

It’s been an aim­less win­ter. Some days full of mean­ing, oth­ers pass­ing with­out so much as a moment worth remem­ber­ing. I’ve learned to cher­ish every storm cause each one could be your last. Who knows when you’ll get to walk on trails cut through tan­gled branch­es with the snow as wet and thick and heavy as this again?

long driveway with snow

The hol­i­days snuck up on me. I’ve been try­ing to fig­ure out where all the time has gone and how best to use what’s left. The only dec­o­rat­ing I’ve done for the sea­son is a real pine wreath (gen­er­ous­ly giv­en to me by Steph) hung on the office door. A small act that does­n’t seem like much com­pared to the glo­ri­ous ceil­ing-scrap­ing trees in the hous­es of my friends and neigh­bours, but cer­tain­ly more than I’ve done in the recent years. It’s an easy con­ces­sion to make against my grow­ing dis­taste for the com­mer­cial­ized Christmas cul­ture when my room is filled with the scent of sap, scat­tered pine nee­dles, and oth­er reminders of life.

car-in-snow

The ever-faith­ful steed.

My exis­tence is defined by what I have left to do, and the list grows ever short­er. I live week-by-week, through cycles of pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and play, try­ing to meet each need in turn. It’s always a del­i­cate bal­ance to be man­ag­ing when so much in life is out of your con­trol.

As for the short term, I’m off to Shirley’s for Christmas and my annu­al dose of fam­i­ly. It’ll be a com­plete break from my reg­u­lar life of sin­gle-serv­ing meals and nev­er being around more than one per­son at a time. I imag­ine we’ll spend most of the days eat­ing fin­ger foods and watch­ing real­i­ty TV among the ram­bunc­tious flus­ter of her kids. I always look for­ward to see­ing how they’re car­ry­ing their grown-up voic­es and how their styles have changed.

hot chocolate

This is the time of year I’m most scared of being left with­out plans1, but recent­ly I haven’t had enough time alone. It’s left me feel­ing numb and tired and that’s exact­ly what I need right now.

Friends still make the best dis­trac­tions. It’s easy to hide from any­thing when you’re shar­ing a blan­ket and some ear­ly episodes of Trailer Park Boys.

  1. Also why I usu­al­ly make a trip to Toronto. [↩]

Trapped in NYC

A few weeks ago, an anony­mous per­son very thought­ful­ly sent me a track called NYC by Brolin. This per­son must know me quite well, cause the song is to my taste exact­ly. Not only that, but I’d been mean­ing to make a short film about my trip to New York (as well as the extend­ed stay due to Hurricane Sandy), and Brolin’s min­i­mal­is­tic sound space and ghost­ly vocals gave me an atmos­phere of warmth and won­der that matched my footage per­fect­ly.

Personally, I don’t think I could ever cre­ate any­thing and name it NYC. It’s a city with too much depth and com­plex­i­ty to try encap­su­lat­ing in a verse or song or mov­ing image, then tie it up with three sim­ple let­ters. I can’t wait to go back again some day to cap­ture as much as I can.

found and lost

I don’t know how to tell my friends about you. What am I sup­posed to say? That all we shared was some tea and talk and those four hours are rea­son I still believe in chem­istry after all the prac­ti­cal fail­ings of my past rela­tion­ships? And how do I bring you up, now that it’s been so long I won­der if you even remem­ber me?

Perhaps you would­n’t be in my mind so often if Green Eyes was­n’t one of my favourite songs. It always takes me back to those days on the mend, when all I had was your broth­er — singing with a voice like it was soaked in Scotch and left to dry on a line in win­ter — to give me some­thing new to love. You were the one to give me some­thing to be excit­ed about when it felt like noth­ing mat­tered any­more, and just as much became an inex­tri­ca­ble part of that time.

That’s why I haven’t for­got­ten you. That’s why I nev­er will.

I can still see the cav­a­lier way you’d toss your curly hair over your head every now and then, as if you were per­pet­u­al­ly decid­ing how best to wear it. I’ve come to appre­ci­ate that kind of casu­al come­li­ness, and the fact that you were so unaware of it made it all the more endear­ing.

We were sup­posed to start a band of our own. I’d pick up key­board or cel­lo if you want­ed to stick with gui­tar, we’d do cov­ers of Andrew Vincent, open for house shows, and get signed to Kelp some day. Instead, all I have is a pic­ture of you danc­ing at the Raw Sugar, and what if for­ev­er on my lips.

I may hard­ly know you, but the truth is I miss you. I still want you in my life. I want to know where you’ve been and who you’ve loved, what you’re danc­ing to and how else your cre­ativ­i­ty has tak­en form. But all I can do is won­der if our paths will ever cross again.